


What Dreams Are Made Of

by LilaLuna



Series: To the Moon and Back [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Avengers Family, Childhood Memories, Clint and Laura Barton's Family, Dreams and Nightmares, Family Feels, Fluff, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Wanda Maximoff, Memories, Minor Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Night Terrors, Protective Avengers, Protective Laura Barton, Protective Natasha Romanov, Trauma, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21936406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilaLuna/pseuds/LilaLuna
Summary: When Wanda dreamt, she dreamt in bright colors, sometimes soothing, sometimes aggressive, but always in vivid colors.When Wanda dreamt, she dreamt of her past, good and bad moments all came together in a swirl of colors.When Wanda dreamt, everyone knew it.
Relationships: Laura Barton & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff & Avengers Team, Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff & Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff & Tony Stark
Series: To the Moon and Back [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1491686
Comments: 20
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone, may the year to come be blessed with joy, happiness, health and freedom 💙

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**Figures Dancing gracefully across my Memory**

When Wanda dreamt, she dreamt in bright colors, sometimes soothing, sometimes aggressive, but always in vivid colors.

When Wanda dreamt, she dreamt of her past, good and bad moments all came together in a swirl of colors.

When Wanda dreamt, everyone knew it.

_Des images me reviennent  
Comme le souvenir tendre  
D'une ancienne ritournelle  
Autrefois en décembre._

Ever since Wanda had come to live with them, the Avengers were used to having their own dreams invaded by red ribbons, scarlet arabesques and crimson swirls, to seeing their own dreamscape evolve into a new one, one they didn’t recognize, one that wasn’t their own. Sometimes, it would wake them up, sometimes it didn’t, and they were led through someone else’s memories.

Wanda’s memories.

Their reaction to those stolen dreams were various depending on the content of the dreams they witnessed. The good dreams led to an enjoyable feeling of knowing the girl better by having some glimpse of her past, the bad ones let an awful taste of unfairness and horror, a harsh realization that the world wouldn’t spare anyone, not even a scared little girl in desperate need for comfort.

An unspoken agreement was reached that no one would talk about it in the morning, except if Wanda came to them. She never did. Probably never would.

Except for one person.

_Je me souviens, il me semble  
Des jeux qu'on inventait ensemble  
Je retrouve dans un sourire  
La flamme des souvenirs_

Sometimes, after one of those bad dreams, Natasha found a little someone crawling in her bed, seeking reassurance and warmth. No words were uttered, but the redhead would open her arms and let the little witch snuggle and curl up against her.

She would stroke her hair and let her cry when she needed too. Sometimes, she would sing, old Russian lullabies fetched from the depth of her own memories. She would keep it up until the girl fell back asleep, dried tears on her cheeks, and shivering from the aftermaths of crying herself to sleep.

Sometimes, Wanda didn’t cry. She laid there, engulfed in warmth of the redhead’s bed and arms, big green eyes wide open, too scared to close them again and see what she so desperately wanted to escape from.

It became a routine that only the two of them shared. When a sleeping Natasha felt one of those nasty dreams slip away, causing her to wake up, she knew Wanda was waking up too in her own room, and that the girl would be there any moment, and she would be ready.

Once, a few months after Wanda had first come to live with them in the tower, one of the boys, probably Tony warned by FRIDAY that Wanda would be in there, had burst in the spy’s room after one particularly terrible dream, only to find the little witch wrapped tightly into the assassin’s arms, in complete silence. Natasha had shaken her head, and Tony had retreated to his room, never to bother them anymore.

Those nights became a pattern, a pattern that happened more often than not.

When Natasha would wake up the following morning, Wanda would usually be gone, no trace of her in the room, except for a rumpled pillow, when the girl hadn’t used her shoulder instead. The day would go one like every other day, and she would find Wanda at breakfast with everyone else, cheerful as ever.

_Doucement, un écho  
Comme une braise sous la cendre  
Un murmure à mi-mots  
Que mon cœur veut comprendre_

Some good dreams were left with the same consequences, a lingering feeling of longing for something lost, an overwhelming and unbearable feeling that left Wanda just as lost and searching for what could never be replaced.

Natasha was there for them too.

If Natasha represented safety, comfort and reassurance for Wanda, the same could be told the other way around. Being there for the girl meant for the assassin that she would never be alone either. Her own nightmares mixed with Wanda’s were soothed by the warmth that the little witch would bring, and her own demons were chased away by the presence of the small yet so powerful little person that saw her as way more than a ruthless, soulless killer.

Both of them found in the other a part of what they had lost and thought they would never find again. They became each other’s anchor, solace. They brought peace to each other in a way they neither of them had seen coming.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

They were there for each other. A constant presence they knew they would find at night to unconsciously watch over them.

_Je me souviens, il me semble  
Des jeux qu'on inventait ensemble  
Je retrouve dans un sourire  
La flamme des souvenirs_

When Wanda was over at the Barton’s farm, it was Laura who took Natasha’s place at the little witch’s side. It wasn’t the same, but it was perfect in its own way too. The mother of three would let the girl curl her fists in her shirt and cry her eyes out. They would pile in Wanda’s bed in the guest room that soon became her room, as to not bother Clint. Not that it would bother him, but he knew that it wasn’t something Wanda wanted to share with any other than Natasha or his wife.

He understood.

He respected that.

Wanda’s dreams were a curse for many aspects. They appeared when they wanted, almost like if they had a mind of their own. They came creeping in the dead of night, waiting for exhaustion to kick in so they could take over.

They were monsters under Wanda’s bed.

They were monsters stuck into Wanda’s head.

But Wanda’s dreams were a blessing too. They offered tokens from a past life. Proves that what once was, really had been. They left the girl with images that sometimes found themselves painted in the morning by Wanda herself, and sometimes Steve. The soldier found those ghosts from the past as heart-breaking as they were mesmerizing, and when he took his brushes, it was often to depict two small, similar-looking children, dressed in a colorful kind of way, smiles on their faces and freedom engraved on their faces. If only those children knew it was only the calm before the storm.

Those paintings were kept secret from Wanda.

Maybe one day, he would give them to her, but not now.

Maybe one day, those paintings would become treasured items. 

But for now, it would do no good to put them on display. So he kept them stored away.

Waiting for the right time.

Those dreams rhythmed their nights, becoming either lullabies for all of them, or storms that kept them awake. No one minded, it became part of their rituals, a habit that everyone learnt to deal with. It was a small price to pay to know that their girl was safe from harm, gently tucked in her room, or in Natasha’s arms.

_De très loin, un écho  
Comme une braise sous la cendre  
Un murmure à mi-mots  
Que mon cœur veut comprendre.  
Une ancienne ritournelle  
Loin Du Froid De Décembre_

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	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back ! sorry for the long wait, I really didn't know how to go on with that story, but I tried to follow what you said !  
> Hope you'll enjoy, and sorry it's so short... 
> 
> Love you all

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A scream echoed in the darkness of the night.

A sob and a muffled cry followed by the noise of shattering glass. Light steps on hardwood floor.

That’s what could be heard.

Red halo around a door, a dark and small figure exiting a room, fearful eyes glistening with unshed tears.

That’s what could be seen.

At various places in the tower, eyes opened, lights were turned on, so as to not be alone anymore with the fading images of a past that wasn’t theirs.

_Small children running in a street, billowing dress and flowing long hair, kite as high as a thin string would go. Playful matching green eyes meeting each other. Skinned knees and quivering lips. A lingering feeling of a caress only a mother could give._

A floor below, a soldier sat up on his bed. A sketchbook got opened, pencils were splattered on a desk and colors came alive on paper.

A genius got up and headed to his lab, wishing to get away from the guilt he felt, from the remnants of a childhood he was convinced he had destroyed.

An archer left his bed and walked to the window, finding solace in the city skyline, lightened by streetlights and the gentle glow of an almost full moon. Comfort was found in thoughts of a family, of children on a farm and a beautiful perfect wife.

Upstairs a door closed. Arms were held open and welcoming and a face hid in the crook of a neck. Red hair mixing on a pillow. 

There would be no going back to sleep.

In the morning, when the sun rose and chased away any lagging red-stained silhouette, everything would be buried deep again, until the next encounter with the ever-turning merry-go-round, that was everything but merry, despite its bright colors and dizzying feeling.

_Snow falling in a thick curtain. Frozen fingertips. Same matching green eyes. Ragged clothes and tangled hair. No more kite in the sky. Threatening shadows cast on a wall of a nearby building. Twin hands intertwined to try and keep them warm. Trying to find sleep while keeping each other safe._

Sleep as comfort, sleep as escape, sleep as torture.

Comfort and escape and torture. The three of them worked together in a complicated dance, wove together in an intricate plait, played together so as to not be the ones to be played. Always a step ahead. Comfort of darkness engulfing reality. Escape from said reality to a new invented land full of possibilities and what ifs. Comfort and escape that slowly gave way to torture as beings of imagination were replaced by ghosts of the past.

Every shade of red blended together, in rivers of crimson, oceans of scarlet, stars of ruby, sometimes punctuated by a wave of blue or a moon of silver, passing by with the speed of a shooting star, bringing a sense of fullness, a feeling of peace embodied by arabesques of red and blue dancing together.

_An alarm blasting in the sky. The rumble of a building. A father’s arms keeping his children safe. A vase tilting, water spilling, flowers on the ground. Dust falling from the ceiling. Children crying in the distance. Little faces hidden in a woman’s shawl, inhaling the motherly scent, waiting for the sadly recurring occurrence to pass. They always pass. Not this time._

They say dreams and nightmares might be the only things one cannot control. Dreams and nightmares are not picked and chose, they pick and choose and only they have the power to do so. It can be exhilarating to wait for them, to fall asleep not knowing what stories the night will bring. But what if those stories were not fairytales, but elegies, requiems for what was, reminders of things that should stay buried. Distortions of an already twisted reality.

Who would wait for them then?

An assassin watching over a witch. That was material for a fairytale.

Every night, the Moon received prayers from a little witch, a little witch begging the Queen of the Night to spare her for one night. So the Moon sent her a star to guard her sleep. An assassin became the star of a child of the dark’s night, leading her towards the light and warmth she so desperately lacked. What she didn’t know was that she herself had become the star of somebody else’s darkest nights.

Because after all, stars need darkness to shine.

Arms tightened around a shivering back. Fists loosened around silky fabric as breaths evened out. One last tear followed her sisters on a path towards another skin.

_A pair of green eyes that lost their spark. A pair of green eyes that lost their life. Hands still intertwined. One warm, one cold. A lullaby. A wrecked city. Half a pair, half a life, half a heart. A requiem._

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